


Game On

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Banter, Case Fic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22708408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Peggy and Jack, undercover at a fancy party.
Relationships: Peggy Carter & Daniel Sousa & Jack Thompson
Comments: 36
Kudos: 130
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Game On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



The party, from the look of it, was already in full swing. Light spilled out of the mansion across its well-kept grounds, as shiny new cars in various shades of green, purple, powder blue, and other hot-off-the-assembly-line colors jostled for position in the wide, sweeping drive.

All in all, it was precisely the sort of place where Howard would have been at home. Maybe if she'd had more time to prepare, Peggy thought, she could've talked Howard into going as her escort. She reached into her handbag for the dozenth time to check her weapon.

"Looks like we're fashionably late, Marge," Jack remarked, giving her a hand out of the car.

She couldn't even complain about the nickname -- well, okay, she _could_ , but it actually _was_ her undercover name ... which was what she got for leaving the establishment of their identities for the evening to Jack. Instead she made a casual effort to step on his foot, but he deftly evaded her. "We wouldn't be late at all, if _someone_ had all the warrants in proper order," Peggy murmured back, firmly resisting the urge to check her bag _again;_ instead she clutched it in one gloved hand.

"Ah, so it's nothing to do with the two hours you spent in the bathroom getting dressed, is it?" Jack inquired, offering her his arm.

"First of all," she scoffed, "it wasn't anything like that long, and second, at an affair like this, the one thing that _will_ draw attention is a woman whose hair isn't properly groomed."

"Well, one thing's for sure," Daniel's amused voice said over the radio clipped behind Peggy's ear in the guise of an ostentatiously large and vulgar hair ornament. "You two will have no problem passing yourself off as a married couple. Radio check."

"We hear you," she replied softly, and took Jack's arm to forestall any response. Jack's radio was hidden in the same set of fake glasses that they'd once given to Jarvis on a similar op, in a different time, almost a different life. "Come, let us go find ourselves some Leviathan spies."

"Knowing you," Jack remarked under his breath, escorting her up the walk, "before the night's done, you'll find not only a half dozen spies but also a rogue HYDRA cell, an escaped Nazi war criminal, a baker's dozen of corrupt officials, and Dottie Underwood."

"At this sort of affair, I expect all of those people are here."

No one raised an eyebrow at their late entrance; they were far from the only ones. The band had just struck up a tango. Jack raised his eyebrows and placed a hand in the small of her back. "Do you know this one?"

"I'm sure I can muddle through."

"Just follow my lead and keep your eyes open for any of the guys on our contact list."

Peggy relented to allowing herself to be spun around the dance floor. Though she hated to admit it, Jack was a good dance partner, light and quick on his feet, skilled at telegraphing his moves in time for his partner to follow them. If his healing gunshot wound pained him, it barely showed; there was only a slight hesitation on some of the faster moves. His hand was sure and solid at the small of her back, his eyes bright. She settled into the rhythm of the dance quickly, and didn't realize she was smiling until she caught Jack grinning at her.

"Puts one in mind of another party not so very long ago, doesn't it?" she murmured, as he dipped her low over the dance floor. This was one of the points when she could tell he was feeling the twinge of the healing injury; she saw him pale slightly as he bent her low over his arm.

"What, Chadwick's shindig? Ah, so you admit you _were_ there?"

"I admit nothing," she said, allowing herself to be twirled.

"If you were there, then Sousa probably was -- isn't that right, Sousa? You're listening to all of this, aren't you?"

"Are you there to gather information from our local Leviathan contacts, or from us?" But Daniel's tone over the radio was more playful than annoyed.

As the set ended, Jack snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and handed one to Peggy with a courteous flourish that was rather overdone. She studied him as he sipped from the champagne flute, or rather, held it to his lips while catching his breath. He'd lost a few shades of color. She _knew_ that gunshot wound wasn't as healed as he claimed.

"Should we end up in a chase, are you good for it?" she murmured.

"I'll do what needs doing, Carter. Don't worry about me."

They were interrupted by a bellow of, "Why, Jackie Thompson!" One of the bigwigs at the party was descending on them, his cheeks and nose flushed red from all the champagne _he'd_ had. Peggy saw Jack visibly stiffen, and then his pose flowed from the more relaxed, casual air he'd had a moment ago to the affably friendly Jack Thompson, Social Butterfly attitude that had been the only thing she'd ever seen of him, in the beginning.

"Old Johnny Thompson's boy, isn't it? Heard you're with the FBI, isn't it?"

"It's the SSR, Senator Robbins." Jack shook the old man's hand. "And this is my gal, Marge."

"Why, it's Lou, no need to be formal, son -- and I'm charmed, little lady." Robbins bent over Peggy's hand, which she offered with a giggle and then retrieved quickly before he could actually go so far as to kiss it, which he seemed bent on doing.

"Now, don't be stealing my girl, _Lou,"_ Jack laughed, moving to interpose himself between Peggy and the senator. Peggy raised her eyebrows and surreptitiously stepped on Jack's foot. This time he didn't get out of the way in time, and grimaced as her weight came down on his instep.

"If you need a distraction, from either of them, I could arrange a raid," Daniel said quietly in Peggy's ear, his tone warm with suppressed amusement, and Peggy had to struggle to keep her face straight as she made polite conversational noises. Jack's lips twitched before he got his game face back on.

"So whatever happened to that political career we talked about, when was it, at the Masters' summer house, wasn't it?" the senator asked, turning to Jack as if Peggy wasn't even there. "The family war hero -- you can make a lot of hay out of something like that, son. Tell you what, come by my office the next time you're in Washington, and I'll introduce you around. Can't hurt to get a foot in the door before the country moves on to the _next_ war, eh?"

Jack's social-butterfly smile had become fixed. His casual laugh sounded genuine enough, but Peggy thought she could hear the hollowness under it. "No need to put yourself to the trouble, sir."

The senator clapped him on the shoulder, probably heavier than was intended, given how drunk he obviously was; Jack grimaced again, rolling his body a little to keep his footing. "No son of Johnny's should be wasting away at a dead-end agency, chasing down petty criminals."

"I'm happy where I am," Jack said quietly.

Peggy felt a muscle in her jaw twitch. She could easily read the unhappy tenseness in Jack's stance, even if the senator couldn't, and it certainly didn't help that Jack knew Daniel was listening to the entire conversation over the radio. 

She glided a step closer to the senator and bumped into his arm; her glass of champagne tilted down his front.

"Oh," Peggy cried, putting a hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm so _very_ sorry. I just can't handle more than a few sips; it goes straight to my head and I turn into the most _dreadfully_ clumsy -- here, let me help you --" She moved in despite his attempts to fend her off, ineffectually tried to use his tie to mop at the soaked patch on his jacket, and, in the process, managed to upset the glass in his other hand (with her elbow) and spill it on the other half of his jacket.

Jack was now very clearly trying not to laugh. Over the radio, Daniel said, "What in the hell are you people doing in there?"

The senator finally managed to escape from Peggy's "help," and Peggy foisted her empty champagne glass on him as he made his getaway -- now with an empty glass in each hand, looking like he had no idea what was happening to him.

Peggy turned to Jack. "As you can see," she remarked beneath the music, "I'm perfectly capable of defending my own honor."

Now Jack did laugh. "And mine too, I see."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Jack bent down stiffly to massage his foot. "I think you broke one of my toes."

"Oh, I certainly did _not."_

"I would ask what's happening but I'm starting to think I don't want to know," Daniel said over the radio.

"Would you like us to bring you some wine out to the surveillance van, Daniel?"

"If I'm gonna have to listen to this, then sure."

***

In the end, it was largely a bust, as sometimes these things went. It didn't look like any of their suspected Leviathan contacts were even at the party, and after circulating for a while, they finally escaped out to Daniel's van to deliver the promised wine along with a plate liberated from the buffet.

"Wow, you guys went all out," Daniel remarked when he saw the plate piled high with shrimp, small cakes, and various canapés. Peggy delivered it with a flourish, along with an empty wine glass. She then reached into her handbag and extracted a full bottle of very expensive wine she had delicately stolen from a passing waiter (he had seemed too baffled to stop her; apparently well-dressed women stealing bottles of wine off his tray and stuffing them into fashionable handbags wasn't something he normally had to cope with). While the men looked on in amusement, she followed that with a snow-white napkin she'd lifted from one of the tables, and some flatware.

"What?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Have neither of you ever seen a woman take something out of a handbag before?"

Daniel shook his head and reached for a fork.

Jack sat down on the bench seat along the back wall of the van and leaned his head against the van's soundproofed inside. Peggy, in the process of opening the wine with a utility tool she'd extracted from her handbag, turned to look at him.

"I'm fine," Jack said without opening his eyes.

"Yes, I can see that."

Daniel looked at Jack, too, taking in his pallor, and then glanced up at Peggy. "Why don't we pack it in?" he said. "It's obvious nothing is likely to happen on the Leviathan front tonight. We know at least some of the people who are involved, so we can set up surveillance on them tomorrow. Let's make it an early evening."

"Not on my account," Jack said with irritation.

"Of course it's not on your account." Peggy reached down to slip off her high-heeled shoes, leaving herself in stocking feet. "I'm entirely ready to sit down for a while. Dancing all night was more fun when I was twenty-two."

"And I'm sick of looking at the inside of this van," Daniel said. He poured the glass full and offered it to Peggy. She took a sip and handed it back, then picked up the wine bottle and inspected the label.

"Fine, fine." Jack sounded dismissive, but it was as impossible to miss the relieved note as it had been to avoid noticing how upset he was earlier. Peggy wondered when she'd become fluent in Jack Thompson. "If you guys have had enough, I'm not gonna force ya'."

Peggy looked at Daniel, who rolled his eyes with a slight smile that somehow managed to be both annoyed and just the tiniest bit fond. Daniel picked up the wine glass and took a sip, and Peggy held the bottle out to Jack.

"Afterparty in the van, huh?" Jack said, taking it.

Peggy sat on the floor and began massaging her feet. Those heels really did pinch; she'd borrowed them from Ana, and her feet weren't quite the same size.

"You know you'll miss this when you move up to your fancy political career," Daniel said dryly.

"Oh yeah. How would I live without the smell of stale sweat and the taste of last week's coffee. Say, Sousa, you ever have to do stakeouts with Krzeminski?"

"A time or two," Daniel said, and they both said together, "Anchovy sandwiches."

"Listen, now, I had to _order_ those sandwiches," Peggy said, from the floor. Now that she was sitting down, she was suddenly sleepy.

Jack leaned forward, with a quickly covered wince, and handed her the bottle. She took a drink. The wine was rich and full-bodied, and tasted like a California summer.


End file.
